


All's Fair

by Mithrigil



Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Bad Poetry, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Philosophy in bed, Sex Education, sex comedy, sexy benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanada Yukimura has been training all over Japan in the hopes of defeating Date Masamune--in bed. Of course he'd approach the greatest lover of the Sengoku Era to improve his skills!</p>
            </blockquote>





	All's Fair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Croik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croik/gifts).



> Croik, this made me so happy to write. Thank you for truly inspiring me.

_“Tiny flakes of snow,”_ Keiji tries, _“melting into icicles...in the name of love!”_ No, that’s no good. Maybe the Uesugi aren’t teaching him that much about poetry after all. He takes another swig of hot sake and tries again. _”Tiny flakes of snow...melting in the name of love...into icicles.”_ No, that’s not right either. Maybe he needs more sake.

Kenshin always says that if Keiji’s going to write a poem he needs to take in the surroundings, but all he’s got at Kawanakajima is snow, snow, and more snow. Well, there’s different kinds of snow--the kind that’s falling, the kind that stays where it is, the kind that slushes up the command platforms and the kind that turns a good bowl of steaming sake into a watered-down bowl of lukewarm sake. But he’s written enough doggerel about how good it is to have wine and warmth and company. You’d think he could write something about love, what with how important love is!

It’s just hard to put into words. That’s all. Really.

All right, one more time! _”Snow becomes water....when approached with love’s bright flame--”_

“Lord Keiji! Hello!”

“Yukimura?” Keiji springs to his feet, tries to get a better look down the hill. Sure enough, it’s Yukimura--a whole camp away, but then, if his voice sounds like it’s within reach he must be closer than a mile. Yukimura bounds up the snow-covered hill, half-dressed as ever and looking completely undaunted by the cold, until he’s up on Keiji’s level and bowing so that his voice bounces off the ice.

“It has been a long time, Keiji! Please forgive me for my intrusion!”

“Hey, no way. You’re not intruding at all. Aren’t you cold?”

Yukimura blinks. “Forgive me, I hadn’t taken note of the weather.”

Yeah, that’s just like him. Then again, if idiots could catch colds, Keiji would be bedridden by now. “Then let’s get out of it! I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough snow that I can’t tell one flake from the next. My place isn’t far, and I can send someone to Kenshin for you unless your message can’t wait.”

“That’s much appreciated, Lord Keiji!” He follows Keiji like an eager puppy--well, tiger. “But I must confess, I am not here bearing a message to Lord Kenshin, except that his Lordship is well and awaits their next opportunity to meet on the battlefield!”

“Hey, that’s great to hear. Kenshin’s been worried, you know.”

“I would expect as much from the God of War. To be deprived of your rival at another’s hands--even at the hands of illness or old age--I would never wish that on anyone.”

Keiji slides open the fusuma to his apartments, just in time to dodge a brisk gust of snow, which Yukimura doesn’t seem to notice. Yukimura removes his sandals and sets his spears in the nearest corner, and bows his head with a quick “Thank you for welcoming me into your home. Well, not home. Forgive me, Lord Keiji.”

“It’s nothing--and it’s my home away from home, now, I guess.” A vagabond’s got to have a place to rest his rump, after all, and Kenshin, Kasuga, and Kanetsugu have a lot to teach. (Well, Kanetsugu has a lot to teach by negative example. But he’s a hell of a hand at shogi!) There’s a hot kettle of tea dangling by the stove, so Keiji pours Yukimura a bowl and hands it over, taking some time with his own. “So, if it isn’t a message to Kenshin, what brings you up the mountain?”

“His Lordship has sent me into the field to improve an aspect of my education that I am lacking in, I regret to say.” Yukimura sips his tea, and somehow brightens even more. “This is delicious, Lord Keiji!”

“You’ll have to thank Kasuga later, it’s hers. Hey--are you here to see her? I know you’re taking that marriage advice I gave you into account, right?”

Yukimura sputters so hard that a little steam bursts out of his nose. “With Lady Kasuga? I--uhm. I appreciate your advice and if she’ll have me I may inquire after her, but Sasuke said that she wouldn’t be interested in the training that I’m about to undergo!”

Oh. _Oh!_ So it’s not Yukimura that gets Kasuga blushing about the prospect of going to Kai. Well, that explains a lot. “I guess that works out. So you’re here to train?”

“Indeed! With you, and perhaps even with Lord Kanetsugu or Lord Kenshin if either of them will teach me! I have traveled through many lands already, seeking to better my skills, so I can face Lord Masamune as an equal!”

“Well, if you want to go out back and knock heads together, I’m game. Not sure how much I can teach you, though.”

Yukimura’s eyebrows knot in confusion, and he clasps his hands tightly around the teacup. “Indeed, Lord Keiji, I had thought you would be the most capable person to learn from!”

“Really?”

“Indeed! Your exploits are known throughout the land and your reputation is without peer--except perhaps for Lord Masamune himself. And Lord Tadakatsu, if the rumors speak truly.”

“Wow, that’s some seriously high praise! Coming from you, even.” Honestly, Keiji’s never thought of himself as that praiseworthy of a fighter, and it’s not what he wants to be remembered for anyway, but from Yukimura (who thinks of pretty much nothing but fighting and serving his lord) that’s a compliment of the highest order.

Yukimura nods firmly, and takes another gulp of tea. “I have just come here from Shikoku, and Lord Motochika said I had much to look forward to under your tutelage. He said you had even showed him a thing or two when you were both just starting out.”

“Heh, well, I won’t deny it.”

“And before that, I saw Lord Mitsunari, and he was so moved by your prowess that he had no complaints!”

“He really said that?”

“Indeed! And while Lord Toshiie and Lady Matsu have, of course, not had any such experience with you, and did not choose to teach me, they recommended you most enthusiastically!”

Wait a second. “I’ve definitely crossed swords with Toshiie.”

Yukimura blinks, twice. “Forgive me, I was not speaking of swordplay.”

“Wait, what?”

“Indeed, I was speaking of the arts of the bedchamber!”

Oh.

Keiji’s first thought on the matter is _that makes a lot more sense._ Of course, that thought doesn’t come to him until he’s already thought about nothing at all for about twenty seconds.

And then he scrolls back to the rest of the conversation.

“Hold on a minute,” he says, because clearly those twenty seconds weren’t enough. “Are you telling me that you’ve been traveling across Honshu having sex with everyone?”

“No, Lord Keiji. I visited Shikoku as well! And Lord Kanbe, Lord Shimazu, and Musashi in Kyushu! And Hetsugigawa, but Lord Sorin wasn’t interested and Lord Muneshige’s wife would not permit him to instruct me in carnal matters.”

The teakettle whistles. Yumekichi chirrups. Keiji is speechless.

“And all roads have led me to you,” Yukimura says, finishes his tea, and thrusts forward into a full bow, forehead to the floor. “So I humbly beg you, Lord Keiji! Please favor me with your instruction! I am certain that if you teach me, I will become a lover worthy of the ages, and defeat Lord Masamune in the bedchamber!”

Keiji, who has fooled around with half the warlords in the country, and therefore has the experience necessary to jump to conclusions, reflects on what he’s just heard:

_”Indeed, Lord Motochika, this vibrating machine is quite arousing!”_

_”I do not mind the sharpness, Lord Mitsunari! It only hones my own edges in kind!”_

_”Lady O-Ichi, I have never felt so many hands at once! So warm--so smooth--the fire in my soul is bursting forth!”_

_”Lord Tadakatsu! Your spear is truly mighty!”_

“I need a drink,” Keiji says.

***

“Keiji,” Kenshin sighs, “is it truly so unfathomable?”

“Not really, not after everything else I know,” Keiji says. Drinking with Kenshin is an exercise in futility and a cure for insomnia. Liquor just washes through Kenshin in a wave of half-smiles and off-the-cuff poetry, and not even Keiji can keep up. Which means it’s exactly what Keiji needs right now, since whether or not he chooses to go to bed with Yukimura he’s not going to get any sleep tonight if he’s sober. “I mean, I knew he and Masamune were making the beast with two backs--you only have to be within earshot of Kai to get that far. And I figured if anyone was gonna get the tension out of Mitsunari’s back it’d be him. And if Sasuke swung that way. You know he’s putting the moves on Kasuga, right?”

“Of course, Keiji. There’s no need to change the subject.”

“Right, right. But I mean, it’s not that it’s Yukimura. Any other time, if the mood was right, I might be into it. You know, some festival night. Dancing. Sake. Love! But...it’s this _training_ thing.”

Kenshin smiles and pours more sake. “Do you think you aren’t qualified?”

“Ha, no! I’m definitely qualified. If he was just looking for tips for better loving I’d be right behind him. Or in front, whichever he likes better. But he says he wants to _defeat Masamune in bed_. Like love is something you can win or lose at.” You can only lose at love when love itself is lost. Keiji knows that, better when he’s drunk than when he’s sober.

Keiji’s bowl is empty, so Kenshin refills that too. “Why not take the opportunity to teach him that?”

“You’ve got a point,” Keiji says, and brings the bowl to his lips.

***

Well, that night doesn’t exactly work out, since Keiji spends it passed out on Kenshin’s floor. But once the hangover is gone the following mid-afternoon and the snowfall outside has tapered off to a faint cold mist, Keiji girds his loins (so to speak) and tracks Yukimura down at one of the training pitches.

He can do this. He _will_ do this. The name of love depends on it.

“Hey, Yukimura! Afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Lord Keiji!” Yukimura plants one of his spears in the snow and bows, quickly. “Have you come to train?”

It takes one look at Yukimura’s face to make it abundantly clear that, as usual, he has no idea that what he says can be taken more than one way. That sleeping his way across Japan hasn’t destroyed his innocence is one of the world’s great wonders, a monument to the resilience of the Spirit of the Tiger. Or something.

So Keiji presents him with a single bright flower. It’s a golden tiger lily, like a little firework burst against the snowy sky. It brings out the gold in Yukimura’s eyes.

It also brings out a lot of confusion.

“Lord Keiji, is this a gift?”

Keiji nods. “Even the winter’s chill cannot suppress the beauty of a flower--just like it can’t suppress you, or your passion.” Or Keiji’s best efforts at poetry, for that matter. “You warm everything you touch, Sanada Yukimura.”

Yukimura takes the flower, cups it in his hands and looks at it with bliss and wonder. “Lord Keiji--is this a sign that you have accepted me and want to instruct me in the ways of love?”

“It is!” And if Keiji gets a little flowery himself, it’s only because of the hope in his heart. “If you will have me.”

“Of course!” Yukimura shouts, rising with every sentence. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Lord Keiji! My gratitude--my passion--my spirit cannot be contained!”

The flower bursts into flame in his hands.

An avalanche hits before he can apologize.

***

A few hours later, safely ensconced in Keiji’s apartments with warm, dry towels, warm, dry clothes, and warm, less dry tea, Yukimura stops apologizing. 

“It’s no big deal,” Keiji says, truly, wringing out his hair. “Happens all the time.”

“Is that so?”

“You’ve never been in Echigo in the spring.”

“Indeed, I have not.”

“So really. No big deal.”

“But I am not usually the cause of such damage to the environment!” He corrects that: “Outside of Kai.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen what Shingen puts you through. It definitely worked, though.” Keiji’s hair is as dry as it’s going to get without a good solid brushing, which might not be a bad idea for spending quality time together, but after seeing the flower on fire he’s not sure he trusts Yukimura near his hair.

So it turns out that melted snow--well, water--does good things to Yukimura’s body. His hair sticks out at all angles no matter how wet it is, but his skin shines even after he towels off, and the usual intensity of his expression is really attractive when the only thing it’s focused on fighting with is a towel. And he’s completely unselfconscious of how good he looks, which never fails to get Keiji interested. Also, that he’s down to his underwear helps. A lot. Yukimura really has grown up, and it’s not hard to picture him sleeping with...a few of the people he’s evidently slept with.

Keiji stands by his initial estimation. If Yukimura had just _flirted_ with him or something, this would be a walk in the park. As it is, it’s a walk through a firestorm and a blizzard at the same time. Literally.

Yukimura bends over to gather up his hair and rub it with a towel, then looks over his shoulder at Keiji. Nope, definitely doesn’t know what he looks like. “Lord Keiji, is something wrong?”

“No, no! Not at all, heh.” It’s not a complete lie: there’s nothing new wrong right now! The thing that was wrong before is still wrong now, but it’s not all that easy to explain. And the thing that was wrong _before_ the thing that was wrong before is--nope. Not thinking about it.

Yukimura nods, accepts that without question, and finishes toweling off. “Perhaps it is best that we resume our training indoors after all!”

“Yeah,” Keiji says. “Yeah, we could do that.” It’s less likely to cause any natural disasters, that’s for sure. Not that this building is earthquake-proof, but at least it’s not close enough to the cliffs to get buried. If it burns down, though, Kenshin will pay for it.

So Yukimura takes off his underwear, kneels, then bows, and shouts at the straw mats on the floor. “I, Yukimura, am ready to receive your instruction!”

Keiji tries very, very hard not to think of folding himself over Hideyoshi’s back to protect him from the world. Whoops, too late! _Anyway._ “You know,” he starts, sitting down close enough to Yukimura that bowing isn’t nearly as effective, “I have to wonder if this whole ‘instruction’ thing is--well, it’s going to work, but I have to get something straight first.”

“Of course, Lord Keiji!”

“Yukimura.” Keiji picks the next few words as carefully as he used to when trying to weasel his way out of footing the bar tab. “You want to defeat Masamune in bed, right? That’s the whole point of this...pilgrimage.”

“Indeed!”

“So it’s not about having sex for its own sake. Or getting better at having sex, for its own sake.”

Okay, something clicked: Yukimura blinks, sits a little farther back on his heels. “Lord Keiji, no one else arouses that passion within me! I have fought many warriors, and now I have fought them in this arena as well, but it has all been so that I can gain the skills to best Lord Masamune!”

“So you never look at anyone else with that kind of passion.”

“Lord Masamune is my cherished rival! I would never look at anyone else in such a way!”

“...not the defeating-passion. The passion-passion.”

Yukimura blinks again. Okay, it’s working. If he’s confused, at least it means he’s trying to think. “There is a truer kind of passion?”

Finally, spring is here! “Yes! Okay. What’s your favorite part of Masamune’s body?”

“The spirit of the dragon within him!”

“...his _body_ , Yukimura. The outside parts.”

It takes Yukimura far too long to think about this. Keiji starts composing poetry. _When the sages say / Tigers cannot change their stripes / They meant idiots._ Hey, it’s not bad doggerel! He’ll share it with Kenshin later.

“I am drawn to his back,” Yukimura finally says, quieter than anything else so far, not that that’s saying much. “I so rarely get to see it when we fight! To see him bare it in the bedchamber is a rare pleasure and allows me to experience him more fully!”

Keiji claps his hands. “All right, we’re getting somewhere! So! Backs! You know who else has a beautiful back?” _Saika Magoichi._ No, stick to people close enough to Masamune that Yukimura can make the leap. “Motochika. It’s got to be all that climbing.”

Yukimura nods. “Indeed, I found Lord Motochika’s back pleasurable to touch.”

“What about, um, Mitsunari’s?”

“He did not give me much time to attend to it, but his enjoyment was clear!”

Yeah, this is awkward. But it’s working. So Keiji rolls with it, and peels the towel off his shoulders, sweeps his hair out of the way. “What about mine?”

Is it just him, or is Yukimura’s breathing a little heavier than it was? He hopes it’s not just him. “Indeed, Lord Keiji, you are very well-built!”

Keiji smiles, turns around. “So, I know you’re really keen on defeating Masamune no matter what you do. But love--love is about cherishing the person. And sex is about cherishing that person’s body, how it looks and what it can do and what you can do to it. I get that he’s the only one who lights your fire, but he’s not the only person you’ll ever love, and he’s not the only person you’re going to have sex with, and you’ve got to be able to see those people too.”

Yukimura’s eyebrows knot, and he worries at his lower lip with his teeth. Whatever’s going through his head right now is taking the long way around, but it’s going, and Keiji waits, patiently, and fiddles with the ends of his hair.

“Indeed,” Yukimura says, not just softer but _slower_ than before, “when they said that you would have precisely what knowledge I lack, they were not mistaken! I thank you, Lord Keiji, from the bottom of my heart!”

“Wait! Heh, make sure I know what you’re thanking me for before you thank me!”

“Of course, Lord Keiji! I think you have struck to the heart of the matter!” He curls his fists, swings them back as if he’s bracing for someone to sock him--probably Shingen, come to think of it. “Even as I strive to defeat Lord Masamune, I must cherish him!”

“Yes!” Keiji can’t help throwing his hands to the sky. “Yes, that’s it!”

“I must use our battleground as an opportunity to know him completely!”

“Yes!”

“And to do that, I must also know myself, and what parts of him arouse these feelings in me--and what pleasure I take from the time we spend together! Because even as I fight him I, Yukimura, am sharing myself with my opponent, and he with me!”

“ _Yes!_ Yukimura, you’ve got it!” Keiji barrels forward and hugs him. “There! That’s what makes a lover, Yukimura!”

“Lord Keiji!” Yukimura, startled, hugs back. Though it’s more like grappling than hugging, this close there’s not much of a difference. “I will cherish this as well! And you, for this knowledge you have given me!”

Keiji laughs, pats Yukimura’s hair. “Well, you’re welcome!”

Yukimura laughs too--and that feels good, feels more like this whole training thing should feel. If there is a should, anyway. But whatever shoulds or goods there are, Keiji grins, and gives Yukimura a good tussle into the straw mats.

“So now that you get it,” Keiji says, “let’s show you a thing or two. I know I’m not him, but maybe that’s a good thing: Try and spend the night with me and we’ll figure each other out, okay? So the next time you get with Masamune, you can do the same to him.”

Yukimura nods, firmly, and presses his forehead against Keiji’s shoulder. “I accept, Lord Keiji, and shall endeavor to discover what I may!”

“Great!” Keiji’s still grinning when he leans down to kiss him, soft, steady, and confident that this isn’t going to set the room on fire.

***

Yukimura is all angles in the aftermath, and takes up a futon and a half despite being smaller than Keiji. Keiji doesn’t mind at all: it’s warm, and Yukimura’s panting has more than a little laughter in it, and that’s all Keiji could ask for, from this, from almost anything.

Yukimura also has no refractory period to speak of, but that’s it’s own perk.

He nestles a little closer to Keiji--not that he was ever that far off to begin with--and breathes a settling sigh. “Forgive me, Lord Keiji, I have another question to ask of you.”

Keiji laughs. “Ask away!”

“How did you come by such an intimate knowledge of love?”

It’s hard to tell if this pang in Keiji’s chest is sadness or just awkwardness. He could pretend it’s Yukimura’s weight, but that would be pretending. Besides, if Yukimura is trusting him with all this, he deserves some of the truth in return.

“I was in love with someone who didn’t love me back,” he says. “She married someone who thought his love for her was a kind of weakness, someone who didn’t understand how strong love can make you--or who understood, but forgot it, or messed it up. I...blame myself for that, actually. It was all a big mess,” he adds, laughing, rubbing the back of his neck. “And it probably sounds just as strange to you as it did to me at first, but I started to believe him, a little. It’s not that love makes you weak, but it does change the way you see other people, and when you have the dreams my friend had....” No, that’s not what Yukimura asked. “The point is, I’ve thought about love a lot, and I’ve loved a lot of people, and I know what it’s like to be with and without it. Kenshin told me that you can’t know strength until you’ve faced weakness. I think the same’s true for love, that you can’t recognize love until you know loss.”

Yukimura nods, his forehead pressed to Keiji’s chest. “I see.”

“When you see Masamune--when you defeat him--not with sex, I mean, when you really defeat him--what will it mean to be without him? Will you let him live?”

“In truth, Keiji, I have not thought about the aftermath.” Yukimura looks up, past Keiji’s hair to the far wall, then down again, past his eyes. “But I know that without him, I would have no one to measure myself against, no one to rouse the spirit within me. I would not regret his defeat, for it would mean that I, Yukimura, had surpassed him at long last. But I would miss him, surely. Would your friend have called that weakness?”

Keiji smiles. “Yeah. He would have. But honestly, I don’t think there’s anything stronger.”

***

A few weeks later, Keiji receives two letters, one from Oshu and one from Kai:

_Keiji - **Fuck you.** I don’t know what you did, but I owe you a drink and a story. Looks like I’ve got some training to do. - One-eyed Dragon_

_Vagabond, I haven’t slept in four days. Good thing you have a kunoichi watching your back, otherwise you’d have to watch out. - Sarutobi_

Keiji bursts out laughing, and toasts to the snowy sky.

*****


End file.
